The GENES Blog (GEnealogy News and EventS): Top stories concerning ancestral research in Britain, Ireland, and their diasporas, from Irish born Scottish based professional family historian, author and tutor Chris Paton. Feel free to quote from this blog, but please credit The GENES Blog if you do so. To contact me please email chrismpaton @ outlook.com.

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Tuesday, 10 February 2015

Clarity over Irish additions to British Newspaper Archive

I noticed not long back that none of the recent Irish content being added to the British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) was going beyond the late 19th century. Whilst what is being made available is of course very useful for 19th century research, I also have a lot of ancestry in Northern Ireland in the 20th century, and so tweeted the team earlier (via @BNA) to ask if there were any plans for any post-1900 additions to the site. The following was the response:

Hi Chris, we're focusing on out of copyright Irish material at the moment (up to 1871). More modern material requires an agreement with the copyright holder, so digitisation takes a lot longer for us to negotiate and process. We’re constantly working on this, so over time you will see more 20thC content appear. If there are any particular titles you or your readers would like to see online, please do suggest/vote for them via our feedback forum: http://help-and-advice.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/forums/243704-newspapers-we-should-add-next

So for the moment it looks like Irish content will only be added up to 1871 - although confusingly, the Belfast Newsletter, previously digitised as part of the British Library 19th Century Newspaper Collection, and now also on the BNA site, does go up to 1900 (whilst Ancestry has it online up to 1925, albeit unindexed). Somewhat disappointingly, if 1871 is indeed the cut off, it may be quite a while before we ever see online what is Northern Ireland's other main national newspaper today, the Belfast Telegraph, it not having commenced publication until September 1st 1870.

(With thanks to the BNA)

PS: Don't forget that my genealogy guide book British and Irish Newspapers is available to show you how to gain access to many titles from across the British Isles, both online and offline - see http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html for further details!